TheChat: Missouri lawmakers decry Ferguson violence

▪ “We have fought so hard for progress over the last few months. I will not allow this cowardly act to stifle that progress.” — Missouri state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed on Thursday on the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson.

Nasheed is right: Acts like this put into question the whole idea of progress in connection with last year’s shooting death of Michael Brown. She and others called this a “cowardly attack.”

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Get this, folks: Have of all Americans have no retirement savings. In fact, the country faces a $7.7 TRILLION retirement gap. McCaskill highlighted the dilemma Thursday from her perch on the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

▪ “For multiple decades, I have known John Hancock to be a person of compete integrity, welcoming the broadest spectrum of citizens to full participation in politics and government.” — former Missouri Gov. and Sen. John Ashcroft, a former U.S. attorney general, on the new chairman of the Missouri Republican Party.

Hancock on Thursday trotted out a host of GOP dignitaries to vouch for his integrity as he sought to withstand a firestorm of criticism in connection with his alleged involvement in an anti-Tom Schwech whispering campaign. Hancock said the campaign didn’t exist. As things stood Thursday night, Hancock appeared poised to maintain his hold on the chairmanship despite calls for his resignation from a trio of Republican state senators.

▪ “Maybe this isn’t the Great State of Kansas. Maybe this is the Great State of the Chamber of Commerce.” — Kansas state Rep. Tom Burroughs, a Kansas City, Kan., Democrat and House minority leader, criticizing a bill that repeals the state’s school finance formula and replaces it with block grants.

Burroughs said the bill, which received first-round approval Thursday, flew through the House too quickly. He also criticized what he called the oversized impact of outside groups, like the Chamber, pressuring lawmakers. The Chamber was one of the few groups to back the bill.